Bumblebee Girl
by Arye.Tyler
Summary: Shae Vantas was Sollux's favorite student. Her father was a grumpy asshole, but at least he was loveable. Humanstuck!SolKat. Many side-pairings. Sadstuck later.
1. Chapter 1

**WEEELLLL, here you have it. Arye got into Homestuck. Oh, geez. Thank my friend for this. She said that it was a good story and to post it, so here it is. Bumblebee Girl. It's actually an AU of a Kingdom Hearts-Homestuck crossover that I've been writing, which includes splashes of Final Fantasy 12 and Air Gear...weird fic, but enjoyable to write. Anyway, I hope that you guys like it~!**

**Erm...if you're here because you read Chasing Daisies, I promise that your update is coming. It is. I mean it, really! Erm. Writer's block? I've had it bad ever since I started reading Homestuck. SolKat and GamTav plot bunnies continually dance in my head. It's horrible, really... *sob*  
**

**Haha, here comes the disclaimer! I do not own Homestuck, or, apparently, my own soul. Hussie does.**

* * *

Shae Vantas was his favorite student.

It wasn't just because she was sweet and gentle, or because she came into school on the first day with her cute little bumblebee book bag. It also had little to nothing to do with the fact that she was eager to learn and forgave Eridan Ampora for bullying her readily.

Shae Vantas was his favorite student for reasons that even he didn't fully understand.

He was fresh out of college, and he'd rather be a professional hacker or something, but teaching paid better. It was Sollux Captor's fist year of teaching kindergarten when little Shae bounced through the door with some strange clown man in tow. She was a small ginger, smaller than most of his other students. The clown man stayed around long enough to help her take off her yellow cardigan and hang it up before patting the top of her head and leaving her to Sollux.

He sat her at the table closest to his desk, along with Eridan Ampora and Feferi Peixes.

"My name's Shae Vantas!" she announced to the classroom when it was her turn to speak. "I live with my daddy and my uncle Gamzee, and I like bumblebees~!"

She sat back down with a sunny smile to continue coloring. When Eridan reached over and pulled Shae's hair, Feferi was the one that yelled at him. Sollux resolved to talk to whoever came to pick her up that afternoon, but he wound up watching her sit on a bench in front of the school for hours after the day had ended. He was about to offer to call her daddy when a short man with wild dark hair launched himself at her.

"Hi, Daddy!" Shae giggled while the short man fussed over her.

"Daddy's sorry; he forgot to remind Uncle Gamzee to pick you up," the short man sighed. "Did you have homework?"

"Uh, I think so...Mr. Captor wanted to talk to you, Daddy."

This was Sollux's cue; he stepped into Mr. Vantas' line of sight. Shae's father was very young, it seemed, maybe around Sollux's twenty-four years. The little redhead clinging to her daddy must have taken after her mother. Except for the eyes, Mr. Vantas didn't look much like his daughter.

"You're her teacher?" Vantas asked gruffly.

"Yeth, Mithter Captor. It'th a pleathure to meet you, Mithter Vantath," Sollux replied, very professional.

Vantas shifted his hold on Shae to shake Sollux's hand reluctantly.

"Karkat. Sorry I sent that idiot to drop her off in the morning; I had class."

"It'th fine; Shae'th a pleathure to have in clath. I jutht wanted to talk to you really quickly."

Karkat's eyes were wary as he put Shae down and told her to go wait in the car, Aunt Kanaya and Aunt Rose were going out for dinner with them that night. She chirped a goodbye to Sollux and skipped over to what Sollux assumed was Karkat's car.

"What is it, Captor?" Karkat sighed.

"Shae ith a very good thtudent," Sollux began. "She doethn't give me trouble at all, but there'th thith other thtudent that theemth to enjoy picking on her. If it'th alright with you, I'll move her thomewhere elthe in the room."

"Fuck yes, move her, you lispy asshole," the suddenly-hostile little man snarled. "You didn't have to ask!"

Karkat whirled around on his heel without further preamble and stalked back to where his car was waiting. Before they drove away, Sollux caught sight of Shae sitting in the backseat next to a blonde woman. Based on what he'd seen of the girl that day, she was probably talking her companion's ear off.

He waited until the car vanished from his line of sight to drift towards his own. He drove to his dad's place for dinner with little redheaded girls and their hostile fathers dancing through his head.


	2. Chapter 2

**So...the only reason I got the second chapter up today is that I had already written it. I won't lie and say that I tend to update quickly. Because lying makes no friends and whatnot...**

**ahem.**

**Anyway, this is all that I have of ****Bumblebee Girl**** at the moment. Hopefully, I'll have the next two chapters ready by Monday. Hopefully. I think that, in the next chapter, I'll actually have Sollux's family show up instead of just mentioning them. And yes, Shae's mother is Terezi. Because there's no such thing as too much Karezi.**

**Anyway, the usual disclaimer. Hussie owns Homestuck and all of its fans' souls. I don't. Yatta yatta. Enjoy the story~!**

* * *

Karkat dropped Shae off for the rest of the week, giving Sollux ample time to examine how the two interacted. Karkat always shielded little Shae from the eyes of the other children a bit; for her part, Shae was either unaware of her father's protective clingyness or so used to it that she didn't bother paying it any mind. Sollux thought that it was cute.

He told Karkat so every day when the little man came to pick Shae up. Karkat always cussed him out. It was all getting to be routine; Sollux and Karkat were now on a first-name basis.

That Friday, Karkat hung around until the classroom had emptied and sent Shae along to the car with her "Uncle Gamzee," the clown man from the first day of school. Sollux wasn't sure how he felt about Gamzee, honestly; the fact that he intentionally made himself look like a clown was just a little unnerving. Shae always had a beaming smile on her face whenever Gamzee was around, though, and it made the weirdo tolerable.

Gamzee's last name was Makara. Sollux wondered, vaguely, if he was related to his step-mother, Airria. She'd been married to a Grant Makara before she and Sollux's dad rekindled some weird childhood friendship and hooked up not long ago. He honestly didn't care enough to ask.

"Hey, fuckass," Karkat greeted him once the room emptied out.

"Yeth, KK?"

Karkat hated being called KK. It was part of the reason that Sollux called him that. Shae was his precious student, his _favorite_ student. Her father, on the other hand, was something akin to a friend and fun to tease.

"I don't know why I fucking put up with your bullshit," Karkat grumbled. "Geez, don't make me fucking regret this. There's this exhibition at my school, and, for whatever reason, Shae wanted me to invite you. Here."

Karkat more or less shoved the ticket into Sollux's hands, grumpy expression on his face daring the older man to make fun of him. Sollux never really thought much about Karkat's age, but he looked really young. Round, slightly chubby face with freckles smattered unevenly across the cheek bones and nose like a little kid had flicked paint at him, dark brown hair that seemed to enjoy sticking up all over the place, eyes so brown they nearly looked red.

Altogether, he was very cute.

"Shae wanted me to come? Wouldn't dream of letting her down," Sollux chuckled. "I'll be there."

"Good. She likes you, for whatever fucking inexplicable reason, and I'll gut you if you cancel," Karkat threatened.

There it was. Sollux didn't doubt that Karkat meant every single threat he ever made if it involved someone getting their comeuppance for making his daughter upset. The angry little man seemed to direct all of the venom in him towards protecting Shae. Sollux suspected that he'd direct it all inward otherwise.

"Jethuth, I forgot that you were in college. How old are you?" Sollux demanded.

"Twenty, not like it's _any_ of your fucking business."

It didn't take a rocket scientist to do the math. Shae was five. He'd never pegged Karkat as the teen dad type. On a sidenote, he wondered what had happened to Shae's occasionally-mentioned but never-seen mother.

"Jeez, man. I thought teen parentth didn't go to college," Sollux admitted.

"Yes. We are all goddamn losers with more kids than we can fucking count. That's totally a thing that is true."

_And_ there was the sarcasm. They hadn't had many conversations where Karkat wasn't outright snarky at times.

"My ex and I made a mistake after homecoming freshman year of high school, and Shae is the result," Karkat continued, quieter now. "I regret abso-fucking-lutely nothing."

Sometimes, when he was talking about Shae, Sollux thought that he might be halfway in love with Karkat. It was hard to not at least admire the dedication to his little daughter that the grumpy fucker exhibited.

"How am I thupothed to know where to meet you?" Sollux asked, eyeing the ticket.

"Here. Gimme your phone."

Karkat entered his number and pesterChum ID in Sollux's contacts while the teacher did the same. For some reason, Sollux had the uncomfortable feeling that this was inappropriate, but he shoved the feeling aside. It wasn't like he was soliciting a date; he was just...keeping in touch with a student's father.

Yeah, that worked. He'd go with that.

Karkat waved over his shoulder as he left the room, mumbling something about dinner with his older brother. A part of Sollux cringed at the idea of an older version of KK out there terrorizing unsuspecting bystanders. Regardless, he texted Karkat that night, finding himself looking at the clock hours later to realize that his movie was over, his goofy-ass older brother Mituna had fallen asleep sprawled across his sofa, and it was nearly two in the morning.

Oddly enough, Shae was absent from school for much of the next week. By Thursday, Sollux became concerned, having not heard from Karkat for the duration of Shae's absence. He dug out his student files, located their address and drove into the city to figure out why Shae hadn't been in school.

They lived in an apartment, it turned out. It was nicer than Sollux had expected, but that was probably because they lived with "Uncle Gamzee" and whoever the hell Tavros was. He gathered that it was Gamzee's boyfriend, a paraplegic that Karkat had mentioned a few times.

The first time Sollux got to meet the man that Shae referred to as "Papi" was when he answered the door of the apartment.

He looked a lot like Karkat, same wild hair and dark brown eyes. His complexion leaned more towards olive, though, his face wasn't nearly so round, and Karkat's freckles were absent (these must have been traits inherited from Karkat's mother, a figure nearly as enigmatic as Shae's). He was probably around the same age as Sollux's dad and stepmom.

"Hello," Papi Vantas greeted him coolly, eyebrow raised. "Can I help you?"

"Uh, yeth. I'm Mithter Captor, Shae'th teacher. She wath abthent thith week, tho I thought I'd bring her the work she mithed," he explained hesitantly.

"One moment."

Sollux found it hard to reconcile the grandfather that Shae told him about with Papi Vantas as the man turned to talk to someone, probably Karkat. Shae tended to see only the best in people, though, Sollux had discovered. She looked directly past the bad. He wasn't sure if this was just a small-child condition or a natural facet of Shae's personality. A part of him hoped that it was the first, because thinking of how disappointed she would be later in life was...heart-wrenching and hard to take.

"Karkat says that you can come in," Papi Vantas informed him when he returned. "I'm Carmine, Shae's grandfather."

Sollux followed Carmine past a little kitchen-type area into what seemed to be functioning as a living room. Karkat was sitting on the sofa with a bundle of blankets curled up beside him; there was another man in a red sweater sitting on the floor in front of the sofa, murmuring softly to the bundle of blankets.

Sollux caught sight of bright red hair in Karkat's lap and realized that it was _Shae_ curled up under all those blankets.

Carmine took a seat next to the man on the floor and gently stroked Shae's head; the child whimpered as she leaned into his hand. Her usually pale face was red with fever.

"How long hath she been thick?" Sollux asked softly from where he was standing behind the couch.

"All week," Karkat mumbled. "She started mentioning her head feeling funny on Friday, and she was like this by Sunday."

Shae whimpered again and shifted closer to Karkat. Carmine cooed gently as he and Red Sweater Man continued to try to coax her in awakeness. It was weird to see Karkat in the same room as his dad and older brother; they all looked so similar.

Red Sweater Man eventually stood and lifted Shae out of Karkat's lap carefully; she burried her face in his neck, making little noises of complaint.

"You have class, brother," Red Sweater Man chided Karkat gently. "We can take care of Shae without you for a short time, don't worry."

"Yeah, whatever Kankri," Karkat grumbled.

Sollux felt incredibly out of place, watching as Karkat stood and kissed Shae's forehead. She finally opened her eyes a little to peer at her father hazily through heavy eyelashes, smiling a little and telling him to do well in his class.

He walked Karkat to his car in silence. It wasn't until they were at the curb that Karkat finally turned and stared at him expectantly.

"What, fuckass?" Vantas finally asked him.

"I'll...come back with more of her work tomorrow," Sollux ultimately decided on saying, rather lamely.

Karkat raised an eyebrow at him like he'd been expecting more; Sollux was too busy kicking himself internally to say any more than what he already had, though. Ultimately, the younger of the pair got on his tip-toes to kiss Sollux on the cheek before he climbed into his car and vanished down the street.

Sollux smiled the whole way home.


	3. Chapter 3

**What? Two updates in one day? This never happens. I'm on a roll~! Happy face.**

**Erm, so. This story got some really awesome reviews that made me all sorts of happy, so thanks! Wow, it's really awesome to know that people like the stuff that I write. I'm super-attached to this story (even the Sadstuck-y parts that make my friend mad at me), so I'm glad that other people enjoy it.**

**The standard disclaimer. Hussie owns everything. Homestuck, the universe, all of our souls. All that good stuff.**

* * *

"Tomorrow" turned out to be Saturday. Sollux felt like an idiot when he woke up and realized that. There was no school work on Saturdays. Damn it. What would he use as an excuse to visit, then...?

Wait.

Why did he need an excuse?

One of his students had been absent for a week; she was sure to be behind on work. Anyway, Karkat worked during the day, and Sollux didn't trust Gamzee to watch a sick child. That man was not stable; he seemed _stoned_ most of the time. No, no, no. Not capable of taking care of himself, how was he going to take care of a little girl?

Okay, Sollux mentally scolded himself. The first thing that he needed to do was calm the fuck down. And then he needed to call his dad, because he promised that he would. And, holy shit, where was Mituna?!

Sollux scrambled out of his room to search his home for his older brother. He'd been staying with Sollux that week to help with unpacking, but he tended to burn things when he tried to cook breakfast. Oh, God, no. There was smoke. Mituna was cooking breakfast.

Sure enough, when Sollux got to the kitchen, his older brother was burning toast. Again. Mituna Captor was a lot of things. Caring. Goofy. Clutzy. _The worst fucking cook ever_. These were just a few of the things on that list.

"MT!" Sollux groaned. "You're on a mithon to thet my toathter on fire, I thwear!"

"Nu-uh!" Mituna disagreed. "I wanted to make brakefatht!"

"Thith ith not breakfatht, MT," the younger Captor argued, holding up the toast-shaped piece of charcoal that he'd extracted from the oven. "Thith is an abomination. It'th not even edible."

Mituna responded by spazzing out and launching into a rant about how Sollux didn't appreciate his efforts at being a good older brother. At least, Sollux thought that was the gist of it. Mituna became basically incoherent when he spazzed out.

"Thorry! Thorry! Shut up while I call Dad!" Sollux shouted over his shoulder as he retreated to the living room with his orange juice.

Mituna chose to continue spazzing out while Sollux picked up the phone and dialed Syrus' number. By the time that their step-mother, Airria, answered the phone, Mituna had transitioned to his usual post-flipout soft buzzing. It was still annoying, but at least he'd stopped throwing muffins.

"Hello? Sollux?" Airria asked.

"Oh, hey Airria. Ith Dad there?"

"He's...actually, I don't know what he's doing. Something with the TV."

"Can you put him on?"

"Lemme ask, kiddo."

He hated it when she called him kiddo. Or brother. Or any of the number of things that Airria tended to call people out of some strange, zen-like clown-hippie affection. Generally, he wasn't very fond of Airria. She was nice enough; Sollux had just always felt like she was trying to replace his mother.

It didn't matter that she was dead and had been for all of his life. Yui Captor held a very special place in his heart that nobody else was allowed to even _try_ to fill. Especially not his father's clown-obsessed, spaced-out, green-and-grey-eyed new wife.

"Thol? You thtill there?" Syrus' voice came over the phone, interrupting Sollux's train of thought.

"Yeah, hey Dad. What'th up?"

"The fucking TV. It'th broke, I think. Dunno what happened."

Sollux couldn't help but laugh. His dad had been having issues with technology around the house for as long as he could remember. It was probably part of the reason that Sollux had become so good with computers; Syrus would have broken them all long ago, otherwise.

"Pleathe don't kill the TV, Dad. Want me to come over and fikth it?"

"Fuck no! I've got thith!" Syrus insisted stubbornly. "Did that thtudent you were talking about the other day ever come back?"

"She'th thick. I went to check on her yethterday; I wath about to head out again. Her godfather'th...thort of unreliable."

"What wath hith name, again?"

"Gamzee. Why?"

"Air!" Syrus called. "What'th your youngetht'th name, again?"

A few seconds' pause, and then Syrus chuckled. Sollux heard some suspicious banging that made him worry for the TV.

"He'th your thtep-brother, that'th why," his dad finally informed him. "Air thayth that he'd never do anything that could hurt Karkat or Shae. Holy shit, kid, you didn't tell me she Karkat wath Carmine'th!"

Ugh. For some reason, Sollux wasn't shocked that his dad knew Karkat's. He also didn't feel like asking how, at the moment. It was more than a little irritating that Syrus hadn't bothered telling him his step-brother's name.

He said goodbye to Syrus and Airria and hung up before he was forced to go over to his dad's house to save the poor television that seemed to be getting mangled. Mituna had plunked himself down on the couch to play video games while Sollux was talking to their father; he would spend the rest of the day there. Unless he called their other step-brother, Kurloz, but at least Kurloz was responsible.

Psh. Kurloz. Responsible. Those two words _should not _have been put together. He took care of Mituna, but was otherwise just weird.

Sollux felt okay about leaving MT home alone when he left the house an hour later to head to Karkat's, though. At the very least, he could trust his brother to not set the house on fire.

Kankri answered the door when Sollux arrived this time. It seemed like Carmine was nowhere to be found; he must have been at work, or whatever it was he did when he wasn't helping his sons out. Karkat had moved Shae to the kitchen. She smiled at Sollux from where she was sitting at the table in her bundle of blankets when he entered.

"Hey, anklebiter," he greeted her, ruffling her hair. "Feeling any better."

"A little," she yawned. "Daddy says I have to eat some soup."

"And then take a nap!" Karkat added. "You seem to have conveniently forgotten that part."

Shae just smiled again and burrowed down in her blankets. Sollux noticed the bottle of pills on the table and came to the conclusion that she must have been on medication at the moment.

Karkat rose an eyebrow at him when he leaned against the countertop beside the stove. From his vantage point, Sollux caught sight of Gamzee's crazy hair in the living room and what he thought must have been Tavros' wheelchair.

"Nice of you to invite yourself into my home," Karkat remarked sarcastically.

"I know it ith. You're in awe of how amazingly nithe I am."

"Asshole. What do you want?"

"Wow, I'm hurt KK. I can't jutht want to thpend time with you and Shae?"

"I think this goes a little beyond a teacher's realm of responsibilities. I could be wrong; I guess you'd know."

Sollux thought that over for a moment. Yeah, spending time with Karkat and Shae was outside of what he was required to do by his job. Did he really care, though...?

No, not at all.

"Maybe I enjoy going above and beyond for you," he found himself suggesting softly. "Maybe I want to do tho more often."

**Karkat never replied to that verbally, but he didn't make Sollux leave, either. That was all the acceptance that was needed.**


	4. Chapter 4

**So, this chapter is basically fluff and filler, but hey. There's Vriska and Tavros. More characters for the win...! Fluff and filler is sometimes necessary.**

* * *

Karkat wound up calling him a few days later with a chance to go above and beyond for the Vantas family.

"I have a class," he explained reluctantly. "And that fucking clown I call a best friend cannot be trusted with sick children."

"Tho. The githt I'm getting ith that you want me to watch Shae."

"I was getting to that...anyway, can you?"

"Yeah, definitely. Lemme go athk about a thub."

Generally, Sollux tried to not be absent. The sub always wound up being his student Aradia Megido's older sister, Damara, who was a psycho hosebeast on her best days. Luckily, it was the slightly, but _only_ slightly, more socially-functional Vriska Serket that drove down to substitute for him that day. She was actually an English teacher at the district's high-school, but she sometimes offered to drive down to the elementary and middle schools when they were short on subs. Vriska was creepy and obsessed with spiders, but at least she didn't have that god-forsaken accent that Damara affected, and he didn't have to worry about her hitting on parents when they came to pick up their children.

He was still _very, very specific_ with his instructions.

"Thith ith not one of your groupth of degenerate teenagerth, Vrithka, tho pleathe don't thcar them for life," he requested at the end of his explanation of what the students were to do that day while he was gone. "And, for God'th thake, no thpiderth."

Vriska rolled her eyes as she balanced on the edge of his desk and went through his drawers. She said that she was looking for a pen, but he knew she was out to steal his gum again. Ha. The joke was on her; he'd put his gum in his bag the second they told him Vriska was on her way. Stingy bitch needed to start buying her _own_ Hubba Bubba.

"You act like I'm going to call down the Tarantula Gods from the Furthest Ring to eat your class," she complained. "God, how hard can it be to oversee a bunch of crumb-crushers coloring? Where're you off to, anyway?"

"A friend needth me to help him with thomething."

She wrinkled her nose in mock distaste and wagged a finger at him, slamming shut yet another drawer. It was a good thing the kids were outside for extra recess; as little Vriska-exposure as possible was generally the best rule of thumb. Who knew the ways that she would screw them up? He was getting anxious at the thought of leaving those poor children in her spider-bitch hands.

"You know, leaving early to get tail is frowned upon," she snickered. "It's okay, though, between the two of us."

"Oh, God, no! What'th wrong with you? It'th nothing like that!"

He would pretend that he hadn't had thoughts like that about Karkat. For the purposes of derailing Serket's jokes, everything that had ever gone through Sollux's head regarding his grumpy little friend was entirely platonic.

"Suuuuuuuure," she scoffed. "Geez, I'm not your boss. No need to lie."

"Theriouthly. I'm watching hith thick kid for him while he goeth to clath. Why can't I jutht have friendth? Why do I have to be thleeping with every guy I ever mention to you?"

"I'm sorry, I just can't fathom why anyone besides me would want to put up with your bipolar bullshit. Clearly, I am benevolent and patient on a godly level; it's hard to find people like that."

He rolled his eyes, snagged his eyes from the desk, stole the cookie that she'd been holding in her free hand while she searched for his gum and took off. Vriska yelled complaints about him stealing her cookie after him, but the kids were coming back from extra recess. She would be busy for quite a while.

Chocolate chip cookies always tasted better when stolen from friends.

Karkat had already left when Sollux arrived, and Gamzee wasn't there, either. He found Shae in the living room with the paraplegic, Tavros. She was sound asleep on the couch; he assumed that she had been given a dose of her medication. Karkat had mentioned in a text that it knocked her out roughly a half-hour after she took it.

Tavros smiled at him as he tucked blankets around Shae.

"Um...hello," he greeted Sollux shyly. "Did Karkat ask you to come?"

"Yeah. Ith she feeling any better?"

"Y-yes...little by little. She's supposed to be back in school by the end of the week."

Sollux leaned over the back of the couch to check her temperature. She still had a nasty fever, but it _did_ seem to be lessening. He decided to make her soup for when she woke up. Chicken noodle soup helped people feel better, right?

His step-mom said so. Sollux's dad couldn't cook for shit, and neither could Mituna, so they'd mostly eaten out until Syrus married Airria.

Shae slept for a long time, though, all the way up to Karkat getting home. The apartment was pretty quiet until then, since Tavros and Sollux were trying to avoid waking Shae up. Anyway, Tavros wasn't much for conversation. The few times he said more than a sentence, he stuttered and stumbled over his words like they were going to bite him.

Karkat checked on Shae before he did anything else upon getting home. Sollux watched from the kitchen as he checked her temperature and stroked her hair with a little smile. After doing that, Karkat dumped his book bag on a chair by the dining room table and drifted into the kitchen. He wrapped his arms around Sollux's waist and rested his forehead against the taller man's back.

"Hey, KK."

"What's up, Lispy?"

"The thky."

"_Sooooo_ funny. Smart ass."

They didn't have a formally defined relationship beyond being friends when Karkat came home, and they still didn't when Sollux finally got his things together to leave that night. When Karkat let Sollux lean down and kiss him fully on the mouth at the front door, they weren't officially dating, but they had a date set up for that Friday, and, at the moment, that was enough.


	5. Chapter 5

**So, I haven't updated in a while. And I'm sorry. I'm a bad person. But here is the fifth chapter of Bumblebee Girl~! I'll try to get the sixth and seventh ones up soon; it should be expected that this will be a pretty long story. I had originally only planned on ten chapters, but whatever. If you're interested in their parents, I'll be expanding my story about Yui and Syrus (Sollux's mom and dad) into a miniseries. I think I'll do Grant and Airria next...**

**Well, enough of my self-indulgent ramblings. Happy reading~!**

* * *

As promised, Shae was back in class by Friday. She squealed softly and hugged his legs when Gamzee dropped her off. The clown-man, who was usually friendly and dopey, just nodded awkwardly before he absconded. He and Sollux were both a little leery of each other since the whole "by the way, you're step-brothers" revelation not too long ago.

It would clear up soon enough, Sollux was sure. He was just glad that Shae seemed healthy and happy again as she took her seat between Aradia and Feferi. Surprisingly, Eridan seemed happy, too; he crossed the room to present Shae a box of candy and a card, blushing and saying that he was "happy she decided to stop being such a sissy and come back to school."

Shae giggled and accepted the presents, kissing Eridan on the cheek. The little boy went back to his chair with a dark blush on his usually pale face. Sollux pulled the little photo out of his back pocket as he sat at his desk and flipped it over. A phone number scrawled in all-too-familiar handwriting and a note.

_This is your daughter. Her name is Liina. Call me, Sol; it's important._

_-Lani_

He hadn't seen the name "Lani" since he was eighteen, when his then-girlfriend Leilani Kealoha dumped him and transferred to a college in her native Hawaii. Until she'd sent him the picture, he'd thought that she'd entirely forgotten about him.

He flipped the photo back over to examine Liina. She had Leilani's dark-brown eyes and Sollux's straight dark hair and his mom's pixie-ish features. In the photo, her hair was in pigtails and a baseball cap was perched on her head; she was holding a skateboard. He took a closer look at the hat.

That was _his hat_. He'd gotten it at a Detroit Tigers game that he went to with Lani years ago. A few weeks later, he'd loaned her the hat when it rained during one of their dates. He'd never gotten that hat back, and now it appeared that Liina wore it. That was fine; she was adorable.

He wondered if Shae would like to have a sister and then squished the thought. No need to be creepy; his first date with Karkat was that night, after all.

He watched Shae carefully in class to make sure that she didn't get sick, but she truly seemed over the worst of her illness. She coughed a few times, but that was the extent of the signs of sickness she showed.

"Shae!" he called at the end of class, waving her over to his desk.

She hugged Aradia and Feferi, kissed Eridan on the cheek, and then she skipped over to his desk. He smiled a little, wondering if his daughter acted like this in the back of his mind. He'd call Lani, definitely...preferably _after_ his date with Karkat.

"I'm driving you home. Thound good?" he asked.

"Yeah!"

She chattered animatedly as they walked to his car, mostly about her misadventures with "Fef, AA, and Eri" during lunch and recess. Eridan seemed to be a favorite person of hers, even though Sollux thought he was a little shithead. He didn't envy Karkat for the issues that he would be having with Shae and Eridan later in life, because he was sure that the pair would wind up dating one day.

The chattering paused as they drove to her home, and then she asked him something that left him spluttering and unsure of how to answer: "Are you going on a date with Daddy?"

"Uncle Kankri says you are, and that's why him and Aunt Taro are watching me tonight," she continued. "It's fine if it's a date. I like you, and I think that Daddy needs more friends. He's always alone since Mommy went away."

"What do you mean, went away?"

Shae didn't talk again for the rest of the ride. When Sollux glanced in the rear view mirror, he found her staring out the window with an uncharacteristically somber look on her face. He decided to ask Karkat about Shae's mother.

She ran inside once they got to the apartment; Karkat had already scooped her up in a hug by the time that Sollux got inside. He heard Kankri talking to someone in the living room, and assumed that the red-haired woman that emerged from the kitchen was Taro Vantas, Kankri's wife.

Karkat had told him about Taro. With the life she'd had, it was nothing short of amazing that she still managed to stand as tall as she did. He took a moment to smile at her and ask her about the gender of the baby that Karkat said that she and Kankri would be having.

"A girl," she replied. "We decided on Abigail for the name, thank you for asking. You must be Sollux."

An impish smile spread across her face, and he could see, for a moment, the girl that Kankri had met years before. A former juvenile delinquent, Karkat said that Taro remained rebellious and mischievous to a fault. She often pulled pranks on the members of her family, apparently including Carmine.

Sollux would be lying if he said that she didn't make him a little nervous. He was also a little impressed that seemingly mild-mannered Kankri had managed to catch and keep her attention for as long as he had; they had been together since they were thirteen, leaving outsiders like Sollux to wonder what had kept those two a couple for fifteen years.

"I hope you two enjoy your date," Taro continued smoothly. "And call ahead if you'll be back early so that we can clean up the party we'll be throwing in your absence, Kit-Kat."

"You're so fucking funny, Taro," Karkat scoffed. "I almost forgot that I was supposed to laugh. _Hah!_ Remember what the doctors told you."

Despite his statement, the tiny smile on his face as he addressed his sister-in-law was genuine and affectionate. He kissed Shae's forehead and then Taro's before he and Sollux were off.

"She'th charming, your thithter-in-law," Sollux commented as they drove back to his place so that he could change and put away his school-bag.

"She's fucking crazy," Karkat retorted. "And I'm not sure if that's because she's just out of her mind or because she married my brother."

"What did the doctorth tell her, anyway?"

"They want her to rest a lot, since she and Kankri waited so fucking long to have kids."

Sollux gathered that Taro and Kankri had been married for quite a while, despite their relatively young age, but decided to not pursue it. He used the topic of kids to transition into the question that had been burning at the back of his mind all day.

"Hey, KK, what happened with Shae'th mom?"

Karkat froze and pursed his lips, staring out the window stubbornly. Sollux didn't go any further, not wanting Karkat to cancel the date. He liked Vantas too much, couldn't lose him like he'd lost Lani. Oh, shit, he was going to lose him like he lost Lani. _Ohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckoh fuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfu ckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuck ohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckoh fuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfu ckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuck ohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckoh fuckohfuckoh-_

"She died," Karkat finally mumbled, breaking his train of thought. "In a car accident, two years ago."

"Shit, man, I'm thorry."

"That is literally _the dumbest shit_. I hate it when people say that," the shorter man snarled. Sollux was worried, for a moment, that he was going to shut down like he usually did when the topic was broached, but he sighed and continued. "Her name was Terezi Pyrope; besides you, she's the only person I've ever been with. She was my best friend, girlfriend, and, until I met you, the only person that I ever loved in a non-platonic way."

It wasn't exactly an "I love you," but it was close enough. Their entire relationship, thus far, had been built on implications and things that didn't need to be said, just _known._ This was no different. During the rest of the ride, Karkat mumbled stories about a red-haired girl with blind blue eyes that called him "Karkles" and claimed to see through smell. He told him about how she'd wanted to be a lawyer, and how she'd doted over Shae. He told him about the weeks of hospital visits after Terezi's accident; he choked out the story of how she'd flatlined when everything had started to look up again.

In exchange, Sollux mumbled tales of laughing brown eyes and copper skin and red flowers perched in hair black as pitch. He told him about, literally, running into Lani on his way to class in his senior year of high school. She'd shaken his entire world to its core, and he'd thought that he would be bitter about it, but he looked back fondly on when she was his. He remembered every detail of every date. Unfortunately, he also remembered her breaking up with him and the days and nights of trying to drink her away.

No amount of rum could wash Lani away, though. She was someone that was impossible to forget or get rid of.

"Hey, Sol..."

"Yeah, KK?"

A little hand covered his free one and squeezed it lightly. It was another of those things that didn't need to be said; Sollux knew what Karkat meant. He turned his hand a hair and squeezed back. He didn't look to make sure, because then Karkat would slip back into his usual grumpiness, but he was pretty sure that he saw Karkat smiling out of the corner of his eye.

Sollux went ahead to unlock his door when they got to the house, so he didn't notice the little slip of paper in Karkat's hands at first. In fact, he'd changed and slipped on his trusty red-and-blue-lensed sunglasses before he realized that he'd even dropped the photo of Liina. He actually might not have realized until he went to call Lani that night if Karkat hadn't spoken up.

"Sol...you have a daughter?"

Time froze. He hadn't told Karkat about Liina for good reason; children that lived in Hawaii with their mother, who had broken your heart into a million little unsalvageable pieces, weren't exactly first-date topics. The way that Karkat was looking at him said that he had better explain, and quickly, though, so he sighed and slumped down on the couch. Karkat sat on the floor in front of him, head on his knee.

"I didn't know about her until thith morning, when I checked the mail," Sollux began softly. "I haven't called Lani, yet. KK, I would have told you if I'd known."

Karkat didn't say anything right away, and it scared the shit out of Sollux. Eventually, though, he handed Sollux his cellphone and the photo. A silent command to call Lani; Sollux obeyed soundlessly.

Even though this was obviously a new number (her old one was still a contact on his phone), her ringtone was the same overly-cheery song that it had always been. She picked up after three rings, a habit of hers that time hadn't changed, and, for the first time in six years, a cheery _"Aloha!"_ greeted his ears.

"Lani...?" he asked hesitantly.

Silence on the other end, and then, _"Sollux?"_


	6. Chapter 6

**It is safe to assume that I am going to be very slow with updates; it's just hard to post things from a mobile device, and I rarely have access to a computer. I apologize in advance for anyone that checks for updates to this story. It can also be found on Archive of Our Own, where I post as harlequinVindicated, which is the same as my Tumblr username, so...yeah. You can check in both places for extras and updates within this verse.**

**-Arye**

* * *

"_I was worried you weren't gonna call, braddah,"_ she admitted with a sheepish laugh. "_After I sent off the photo, I thought about it and realized that I made it sound like someone was dyin' or somethin'."_

She wasn't speaking Pidgin, _thank God_. Sollux did not understand that shit anymore; it had been too long since the last time he heard it. He wouldn't deny that it was nice to hear her voice again, though. He heard a more high-pitched one in the background that he assumed was Liina.

His heart clenched at the thought.

"Lani. Why didn't you tell me thooner...?"

"_...I had a lot of reasons, Sol."_

"Goddammit, Lani, I had a right to know!"

"_I know, man! I know...and I'm sorry, alright?"_

He sighed and leaned his head back so that it rested on the cushion behind him. He felt Karkat's eyes on his face, searching, and smiled reassuringly. KK squeezed his knee, but he wasn't sure if it was because Karkat was acknowledging the smile or because he thought that Sollux needed it.

Either way, he was happy that KK was there.

"I want to be part of her life," he decided. "You owe me that much."

"_Actually, that's what I wanted to talk to you about, braddah. I feel like shit for this, but I got called away for a tour. That professional surfing thing worked out. I can't take Lii with me, and I don't want to leave her with a stranger, so-"_

He jumped at the chance.

"Of courthe you can thend her here. Ith she home? I want to talk to her."

"_One sec."_

There was scuffling around and a muted conversation between Lani and the higher-pitched voice from earlier. This went on for a few moments, and then a new voice crackled across the line.

"_Dad...?"_

He couldn't help but smile the first time that he heard Liina speak. _His daughter_. He understood, in that moment, how Karkat felt when he was around Shae.

"Yeah. It'th Dad. Hi, Liina. How are you? How wath thchool?"

On the other end, Liina lapsed into nervous giggling. He wasn't sure why until she started speaking again, but assumed, initially, that it was a habit that she'd picked up from Lani, who tended to start laughing when placed in a situation that made her feel awkward.

"_You have a lithp, too! Heehee!"_

"Yeah, I do. Liina, how would you feel about thtaying with me for a while?"

_"Mom thaid I would be. I gueth it thoundth alright...?"_

Girl after her own father's heart; he would've probably reacted similarly. He chatted with Liina for a little while longer. What was her favorite class? Math. Did she like surfing like her Mom? No, she was really clumsy and bad at it. Did she have friends at school? Not really. The other kids made fun of her because she had a lisp and no dad.

Fuck, he hadn't thought anything could sting as much as that comment, and he wasn't sure which part hurt more: the matter-of-fact way that she said it, or that she was picked on in school, like he'd been.

After a few more minutes, she said that she and Mom were going out to find her a winter coat (_"Do you really get thnow up there? I've never theen thnow. Well, not in real life. In movieth. It lookth pretty in movieth."_) and some long-sleeved shirts. Lani took over long enough to promise that she'd call him again in a day or two so that they could decide on when she'd send Liina to him.

When Lani hung up on him, he glanced down at Karkat and found brownish-red eyes focused on his face in a way that probably should have made him uncomfortable. He wasn't entirely sure if his date was looking _at_ him or _through _him.

"What's going on?" Karkat finally asked.

"She needth me to take care of Liina for a while, and, fuck, KK, what am I gonna do? I don't know how to be a dad; I jutht found out that I am one today!" he rambled.

"That's what you have me for, asshole. It'll be fine."

They sat there quietly for a while with Karkat's head on his knee. Remembering a conversation where Karkat had admitted to liking romcoms, Sollux turned on the TV and flicked to one. At least, he thought that it was one. Sollux didn't watch much television, except for when Vriska had a bad date and they curled up on his sofa with cartons of Chinese food to bash the bitches on Bridezillas.

Halfway through the movie, Sollux glanced down at Karkat to gauge his mood. He was engrossed in the movie, so it was safe to assume that it was safe to ask his next question.

"Hey, KK, are we boyfriendth?"

"You tell me, Lispy."

_Yes. Fuck yes._ If it was up to Sollux, Karkat and Shae would move into his house right then and there (Vriska wouldn't have to move out, though, because she bought groceries and knew how to cook), and they'd be a perfect, sappy romcom family complete with a crazy aunt, because, dammit, Karkat made him sappy. He would settle for boyfriend at the moment, though, and he was about to say so.

But, speak of the devil, Vriska chose that moment to breeze through the door.

"Soooooooollux~" she sang as she walked into the living room. "I come bearing-what the fuck are you doing here, Karkat?"

Karkat lifted his head to eye Sollux's best friend-slash-roommate-slash-self-appointed-babysit ter with a look that could melt folded titanium. If Vriska realized that she was being glared at, she didn't acknowledge it as she dragged a coffee table to the center of the room and began setting out Chinese food. Owch. Sollux told her that guy seemed like an ass.

"I'm on a date, because I can _get_ dates, instead of meddling like _some people_," Karkat replied snarkily. "What the everloving fuck are _you_ doing here, Serket?"

"People tend to come back to places where they live. Crazy, I know. Shit, Captor, why don't you ever _tell me_ when you're fucking my friends?" Vriska complained.

"Becauthe who doeth or doethn't wander through my bedroom ith none of your goddamn buthineth?" Sollux suggested. "And becauthe I didn't know that you knew each other. How the hell do you know each other?"

"She lived next door to Terezi," Karkat explained. "They were friends. Trust me, if I'd known that you lived with her, we would've just fucking had the date at my place."

"You're intolerable and grouchy as ever. Is that anyway to talk to Shae's godmother?" she demanded, plopping down in her arm chair and reaching over to take the remote from Sollux.

_Annnnnnnnd_, there was Bridezillas. Yep. She'd had a really bad date. Sollux expected Karkat to complain, but he just winced and reached over to grab General Tso's chicken. Vriska and Karkat spent the rest of the date trading banter and insulting the women on TV; it was a dysfunctional friendship, but they _were_ friends, Sollux realized.

Well, it saved him the embarrassment of introducing Karkat to his batshit crazy roommate.

Vriska vanished into her bedroom when he left with Karkat late that night, calling over her shoulder that she expected Shae to be well-rested, clean and fed when she came to pick her up on Sunday for church. Karkat responded with his usual stream of expletives and insults against Vriska's mother.

Overall, Sollux thought that it had been a very successful date.

When they got back to the apartment, Taro and Shae were soundly asleep on the couch. Taro had her head in Kankri's lap and Shae curled up next to her; Kankri was stroking his wife's hair as he watched television.

They would have a cute baby, Sollux thought. They were a cute couple, in that white-picket-fence-around-the-yard sort of way. In the back of his mind, he wondered how two people as different as Karkat and Kankri could come from the same parents.

"Did you have a nice date?" Kankri called as they headed into the kitchen for some coffee before Sollux had to take off.

"Stop being so fucking nosy, Kanny," Karkat retorted.

"Honestly, Karkat, it was-"

"No. Shut up. Oh my goddamn, it is too late for that shit."

Sollux snorted to cover his laughter, earning a withering glare from Karkat. The two traded banter and bad jokes and stories for a while longer, and then they sipped coffee quietly, laughing softly at stupid things that made basically no sense. When it finally became too late for any rational person to stay out, Karkat saw Sollux to the door.

"Hey, asshole," Vantas called after him as he walked down the hall. "You're supposed to kiss me goodnight. It's not a proper date without a kiss goodnight."

Sollux turned back with a laugh; he wasn't going to say no to that request.


	7. Chapter 7

The next week turned out to be a clusterfuck of scheduling conflicts. Karkat's exhibition was at five on Thursday; coincidentally, that was the same date and time of Liina's arrival, and there was no way that Sollux was going to be late to pick her up at the airport. That left him being late to something very important to his boyfriend.

He fucking hated being late.

So that he'd be on time for _something_ that day, he was at the airport at five on the dot waiting for Liina. Lani hadn't been able to fly out with her, as much as she'd wanted to; the stewardess walked her off of the plane. Liina craned her shaggy little head around searching for him.

"Liina!" he called.

The instant she saw him, Liina crossed the room as quickly as possible to throw her skinny arms around his waist. There were things that he got to take in about his daughter at that moment that photos didn't convey. She was tall and lanky like he was, something that she'd have to grow into, and she smelled like coconuts and sea winds and hibiscuses, like Lani had when he first met her. When he stepped back to get a better look at her, he found that her hair wasn't as straight as it had looked in the picture, and her ponytails fell to her waist. She had sideswept bangs that were currently held out of her face by a hair clip shaped like a dolphin and wore shorts along with a baggy zip-up hoodie that she practically swam in and mismatched yellow and black converse; his Tigers cap was perched on her head backwards.

It took him a moment to realize that the bumblebee hoodie that Liina wore had once been his, too. That was so damn cute, and, fuck, he was tearing up. He'd promised himself (and Karkat) that he wouldn't, but he was looking down at a miniaturized female version of himself, and...fuck it. He was crying.

"Dad?!" Liina was panicking, like she'd done something wrong. "Dad?! Why're you crying?! What'd I do...?"

"N-nothing, Liina," he reassured her with a shaky smile. "C'mere."

He had to kneel down to hug her properly, but he wasn't going to complain. The whole situation was still mind-blowing for him. He hadn't ever really entertained the idea of having kids, at least not any of his own (he would be more than happy to help raise Shae), yet he found himself at an airport clinging to his daughter and crying like a baby because he was _so damn happy about it_. She was beautiful, and perfect in all possible ways, and _his_. That meant a lot to him.

"Are you sure that I didn't do anything?" she asked suspiciously. "You're acting funny."

"You didn't," Sollux insisted. "I'm happy ith all."

"Mom wath right!" Liina huffed. "You're thilly!"

He pulled back to look at her curiously, blinking. He wasn't aware of the silliness of this situation. Where was the silliness in this situation?!

"You don't _cry_ when you're happy," she continued, rolling her eyes. "Geez, Dad. I think thomething'th wired weird in your brain."

He laughed and stood up straight, wiping at his eyes. Liina smiled awkwardly, shifting from foot-to-foot like she was uncomfortable in her skin.

"C'mon, anklebiter. Let'th go get your thtuff."

He offered the stewardess a smile before heading off with Liina to the luggage claim. He wrapped an arm around her wiry shoulders and tucked her against his side to keep her from getting lost in the crowd; Liina proceeded to babble about her life with Lani and Lani's father, Dan, in Waikiki Beach. Little kids tended to babble when the chance was given, he'd discovered.

Liina's bags were remarkably easy to find; they had big cartoon bumblebees on them. She identified bumblebees as her favorite animals (and, yes, she knew that bumblebees were insects). He was a little surprised at the fact that Liina had so little, but Lani had mentioned financial issues relating to a recent divorce.

He asked Liina about her former step-dad in the car; she flinched and refused to say anything. On more than one level, it made him furious.

He stopped by the house to show Liina her room before they headed to Karkat's exhibition. She trailed after him carrying her bookbag, and peered around the room curiously when they got to it. Vriska'd had a field day with the list of Liina's likes and dislikes that she'd forced Sollux to request from Lani; the only thing in the room he'd had any say in was the old stuffed bee sitting on the bed.

"Hith name ith Mither Buzz," he explained sheepishly when Liina curiously picked up the bee. "I've had him thinthe I wath a baby, and I figured that you might like him...?"

Liina smiled widely and hugged Mr. Buzz to her chest, and he felt like maybe he wouldn't be so bad at this dad thing.

"Let'th go," he finally sighed. "There are thome people I want you to meet."

She peppered him with questions all the way to KK's exhibition. Who were they going to meet? Where there going to be other kids? If there _were_ other kids, were they going to be her age? Or older? These were important things to know, she insisted when they arrived and he helped her out of the car.

He chuckled and peered around for Karkat. It didn't take him long to find the shorter man; Karkat found him first, approaching them with a dolled-up Shae in tow. She looked cute in dresses. It made sense that she wore so many.

"Geez. Fucking took you long enough, Captor," Karkat complained before he noticed Liina.

The way that the angry midget's eyes softened was endearing, really. He crouched down in front of Liina to get a better look at her, smiling a little. Sollux found himself wondering if Karkat just so happened to be naturally good with kids.

"You must be Liina. I'm Karkat, your daddy's friend," he introduced himself. "And this is my daughter, Shae."

Shae bounced forward happily and immediately struck up a conversation with Liina, who had previously come off as sort of shy around strangers. Maybe she was just shy around adult strangers...?

Karkat directed the group to his part of the exhibition. The project, he explained, was to create a tribute to your greatest achievement in life using multimedia. Karkat had made a series of murals out of hundreds of little tiles and then made a video of the murals assembling themselves and then disassembling to phase to the next.

The whole presentation began with a mural of Karkat holding a very small infant that could only be Shae, and, damn, he looked young. He looked young in real life, too, but being able to compare fifteen-year-old Karkat to twenty-year-old Karkat drove home the fact that he'd grown up fast. In its own way, his willingness to be a dad for the too-tiny baby in that mural was admirable; he'd still needed a dad, himself.

Out of the corner of his eye, Sollux watched Karkat kneel next to Shae and hug her carefully as they watched the presentation. She giggled and rubbed her cheek against her father's, soliciting a tiny smile.

The presentation explained Shae between murals of her parents and then the girl herself. She had been born two months premature, spent the first few weeks of her life in a NICU, and had asthma. Karkat had taken his classes on Skype and had friends bring him his classwork, choosing to spend as much time with her as he could.

(Sollux suspected that he'd been scared that Shae would die.)

More murals shifted. Terezi Pyrope, in her red-haired, blue-eyed glory, holding Shae the day they finally got to bring her home. Karkat asleep on the sofa with Shae on his chest. Her first three birthdays, with Terezi, and then the next two without her.

The whole thing ended with the tiles shifting around to form a sentence.

_"My greatest achievement is five-years-old. Her name is Shae."_

Liina squealed softly and clapped a little at the end, bouncing in place. Sollux watched her with a bemused smile.

"That wath thweet," she declared. "I liked it."

"Well, thank you, Miss Liina," Karkat chuckled from behind Sollux.

Shae bustled forward and hugged Sollux's legs quickly before grabbing Liina's hand. The girls vanished into the crowd to play, leaving their fathers to talk. Liina trailed after her new friend curiously.

"My friend Equius is here!" Shae explained cheerfully. "I saw him with his dad earlier!"

Equius was there, it turned out, because his older brother was in college with Karkat working on his graduate degree. For the first time in her short life, Liina found herself _shorter_ than someone; Equius was almost a full head taller than she was!

Crazy. He had to be at least four-foot-five, because she was over four feet tall.

"This is my new friend, Liina," Shae began, pulling Liina forward. "Liina, this is Equius Zahhak! He's older. He's in Miss Kalinski's class."

"Shae...I'm thikth," Liina informed her.

"What?! Aw, man, I'm youngest," the ginger pouted.

Equius smiled (he called that a smile? weak.) and patted Shae on the head reassuringly. He seemed quiet. Liina sort of hoped that it was just because he was as bad with strangers as she was. The only one of the trio that didn't seem like a socially-inept retard (Liina liked to learn big words from the dictionary; it made her feel smart) was Shae.

"Who'th Mith Kalinski?" was the girl-Captor's question.

"Miss Kalinski," Equius spoke up. "Is a nice lady with a funny accent who teaches first grade at our school. You'll probably be in her class with me and Nepeta."

Equius had a weird voice. It was sort of quiet and whispery, and Liina got the feeling that it wasn't because he was indoors.

She glanced over her shoulder at her dad, and did he just kiss Shae's dad?!

What had she gotten herself into...?


End file.
